Main » United States voters: what's your reaction to Trump and Putin's meeting?

United States voters: what's your reaction to Trump and Putin's meeting?

19 July 2018

In a Tuesday tweet the President calls the Monday summit in Helsinki "even better" than his meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies last week in Brussels.

Russian reaction lies in sharp contrast to USA reaction, which has largely criticized Trump for siding with Putin instead of the US intelligence community, which concluded early a year ago the Kremlin attempted to sabotage the 2016 presidential election. The criticism came from solid Trump allies like Newt Gingrich to even the president's favorite news channel.

"Sadly, it is not being reported that way - the Fake News is going insane!"

"The president of the United States today publicly sided with Russian Federation over our own Federal Bureau of Investigation on the subject of cyber attacks on our election campaign", Kimmel said after Trump met "his KGBFF" Putin. "Probably not." Congressional resolutions don't carry the force of law.

Responding to Trump's repeated reference to the location of the hacked DNC server, Colbert showed an image of the world leaders and said: "We know where the server is. Vladimir Putin walked away with a win".

"I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today", Trump said during the news conference.

Another senior Republican, Sen Lindsey Graham, also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tweeted that it was a "missed opportunity.to firmly hold Russian Federation accountable for 2016 meddling". Rand Paul on Tuesday for sticking up for him.

At a press conference following a summit between the two leaders in Helsinki, Trump "handed Russian President Vladimir Putin an unalloyed diplomatic triumph", by refusing to support the collective conclusion of the USA intelligence agencies on the issue, the Washington Post says.

However, it remains unclear if Trump secured Putin's help to maintain global sanctions and pressure on the Kim Jong-un regime.

While Maas urged more diplomatic contacts between Moscow and Washington, US media as well as lawmakers and former politicians from all camps pulled no punches on Trump, claiming his position during a summit bordered on treason.

Trump played into the hands of the Russian rhetoric that NATO is weak, leaving US allies with the impression of "the USA being a non-dependable ally for NATO", Flake said.